[ssf] pillows and prayers :: n'nineteen :: none news
hardcastle
adam at diamat.org.uk
Fri Aug 21 04:12:14 BST 2009
11/08/09 01:16 i posted:
> one point one :: these new puritans
>
> http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AC4D62B6AFCD8C9A&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&v=yHtTZVlFbJM
>
> one point two :: shit disco
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwPtWHNqJIo
>
> one point three :: simain mobile disco
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av42ORmgg9Y
i play the above three tracks quite often to cheer myself up
and i thought: "well, you know what *thought* did, dunt ya"
seriously though, morale is a big issue, i don't whether folk
picked up this story in the independent:
'There is no refuge, no place to go to deal with your grief'
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/there-is-no-refuge-no-place-to-go-to-deal-with-your-grief-1769938.html
i reposted it here ...
The Myth of Sisyphus
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/08/436006.html
... between naps
army rumours attracts more comment, nineteen pages so far about
this story -- on page seventeen nigegilb quotes from a recent
foreign and commonwealth office report:
Re: anonymous Welsh Guards captain in paper today?
http://www.arrse.co.uk/Forums/viewtopic/p=2795926.html#2795926
<snip>
232. A number of commentators have argued that there was a lack of
clarity about why the UK was in Helmand.
* Brigadier Andrew Mackay, who commanded British forces in Helmand
in 2007, is reported to have been struck by the lack of clear
direction "from above" and is quoted as saying there was a sense of
"making it up as we go along."[384]
* Stephen Gray's book Operation Snakebite is just one of many accounts
to highlight the apparent disconnect between different Whitehall
departments.[385] Mr Gray quotes the former UK Ambassador to Kabul,
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, as saying that "a lot of people had been
rather naïve about what could be done here in Afghanistan. There was
still sort of a hangover of misplaced optimism."[386]
* Military analyst Daniel Marston argues that the mission was
initially "hampered by the fact that HMG and the Ministry of Defence
had generally failed to stipulate that what was needed was a COIN
[counter-insurgency] campaign." He adds that the mission was
originally presented as a peace support and counter-narcotics
operation, primarily as a matter of UK domestic political
expediency.[387]
* James Fergusson suggests that many of the soldiers in Helmand
including more senior officers had only "the haziest idea of what
Herrick 4 was supposed to achieve". He adds: In this they were no
different to most of the British public. Some of them thought the
fighting was about poppies, and the need to curtail and control the
world's biggest source of opium. Some thought it was about the War
on Terror, and conflated the Taliban with Al Qaeda in the most
general way. Others were closer to the mark when they said it was
about policing the world, and bringing democracy and governance to
a benighted nation.
</snip>
hmmm ... "making it up as we go along"
a character i know called *subjectivity* wrote recently:
"but in the real, it's like 'the lady doth protest too much',
like take the war, so many fucking half baked reasons are
offered up by the politicians, as to why we are in afghanstan,
so many lies, too many to mention, objectively"
[Global Power and Global Government
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/07/434999.html?c=on#c229027]
but in recent news, uncle osama sticks on twenty ...
"Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again.
"If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even
larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more
Americans.
"So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental
to the defence of our people."
... no wish-washy bringing of "democracy and governance to
a benighted nation" malarky, no, ding-dong, stick to 911
do you think, we could be at that stage of human history
where we allow a great deal of real and understandable hurt
to be manipulated in the atoms of our body politic
so enough of us get confused into thinking, that
we best hurt back, and hurt back first and hurt back often ...
i know another character called *Foss* who quoted Linus
Torvalds and juxtaposed technology and politics in a comment to:
"Breaking the Silence:" Testimonies of Israeli Soldiers
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/07/435288.html?c=on#c229300
"'I agree that it's driven by selfish reasons, but that's how all
open source code gets written!
We all *scratch-our-own-itches*. It's why I started Linux,
it's why I started git, and it's why I am still involved.
It's the reason for everybody to end up in open source, to
some degree,' .... 'So complaining about the fact that
Microsoft picked a selfish area to work on is just silly.
Of course they picked an area that helps them.
That's the point of open source -- the ability to make the
code better for your particular needs, whoever the "your"
in question happens to be ...'
Would you think it likely that the testimonies could be the
product of the soldiers scratching-their-own-itch, so to speech,
or do you know for sure it's all a load of bollocks."
And that kinda mixed things up, in my head at least with copyright
and freedom:
* How the Swedish Pirate Party Platform Backfires on Free Software
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/07/435106.html
* Copyright Law and Online Freedom
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/07/435211.html
* [Upd-discuss] NY Times: $675,000 for Tenenbaum
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/upd-discuss/2009q3/002015.html
and i posted the links to the tracks, as a mental short hand
and in the hope of delivering a medicinal musical pick-me-up
i hope it didn't jar, i understand the older generations
compare modern music to the noise generated by threshing machines
here's some older stuff
acceptable in the eighties:
--------------------------------------------------------
one point four :: pigs on porpoise :: well done underdog
copyright control
http://www.thenightingales.org.uk/pigslp.htm
Well did you hear about the Irishman
Who opened a Tandoori restaurant
He did quite well for himself
It was a lucrative line of business
And he was competent where it counted
Sing "well done underdog"
She was OK after all, well done underdog
She ran a shop, and started riots
Saying "here folk take back your money"
To social pleaders with no idea
She said "Give 'em your answer honey"
And I'll for one, will struggle on
Chewing on my hot dog
Though the Bombay stale, and the mustard hard
The meat doggone underdone
I eat in Birmingham, where the council has
Just passed a new resolution
That from now on, they plant thinner trees
So muggers, they can't hide behind them
And believe or not, I'm told its fact
Blimey when we talk of pressure
Well here's something that'll cheer you up
Did you know they have free phones in Cuba ...
--------------------------------------------------------
one point five :: pigs on porpoise :: the crunch
Robert Lloyd :: copyright control
http://www.thenightingales.org.uk/words/the_crunch.htm
As long as money talks you can't buy the truth
As long as money speaks you won't hear the truth
In the first case, I am assuming corruption
I know you cannot work out a fair price
And, second, those upholding chatty coinage
Must have motives kept disguised and that's not truth
Truth is plural
Pleasure is an inspirational act
They pit pleasure against the conscience
To determine what pleasure shall entail
They take one man's word and turn it against him
So people will require distress in comfort
Pleasure is pleasing to accept, distress needs learning
And the idea of education,
When devised with this in mind,
Makes the untold easier to swallow
And the idea of tradition, when devised with this in mind,
Makes their taught laws easier to follow
So surround the pupils with your folklore
This requires no groundwork by the students
Injections of learning supports the fascist mysticism
Which balances the principle of pleasure with one of achievement
This achievement can be faded out in the long term
To leave them helplessly in place
And wanting money, needing exchange
So is money the sole downpressor of truth?
We can watch cash's effect but downstairs live the causes
The causes are true realism, but this is a problem
Money can mask the causes, which in turn could kill cash
So, we try to make a pleasurable living
Masks above death before birth
Back to square one ...
--------------------------------------------------------
one point six :: partly poetics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD8KWWspIrw
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